There were other things too, that had nothing to do with his body and ageing. The kids getting older was one, and the freedom he’d kind of forgotten about. For years, if he stayed in bed in the morning, if he wanted to, it had to be carefully planned. Lizzie, his wife, had to be told. The kids had to be told, and nearly asked. It hadn’t been worth it, the fuckin’ palaver he’d had to go through. For years, all those years the kids were growing up, he’d been on call. A pal of his had used the phrase, on call. He’d been talking about his own life, but – there were four of them there that night in the local, sitting around one of the high tables – he’d been describing all their lives.

—I’m like a doctor without the fuckin’ money, Noel had said.

They’d all smiled and nodded.

He’d loved it, mostly, the whole family/kids things, and he’d ignored the throb above his left eye that had often felt like too much coffee or dehydration, too much or too little of something, that he thought now had probably been the pressure of that life. For years, the throb – the vein. Everything he’d done, everywhere he’d gone. Every minute had been counted and used. He had four children, and there were eleven years between the oldest and the youngest. It was over now – it seemed to be over – and the throb had gone away.

It had taken a while. He’d be wide awake early on Saturday, with nothing to do. He’d drive down to the recycling centre in Coolock with five empty bottles and a cardboard box. He’d shove the box in on top of the other boxes and newspapers and he’d remember holding up one of the kids, usually the little girl, so she could reach the slot the cardboard was pushed into. He’d wonder what the fuck he was doing up and out of the house when he could have been at home in bed. He’d drive out to Howth and watch other people buying fish. He’d feel useful while he was driving. There were no kids in the back, only more cars behind him in the rear-view mirror. It took him a good while to stop. Well over a year. He was driving long after the kids stopped needing him. But he did stop. He could relax now without thinking too much about it.

He wasn’t on call any more, and Noel was dead.

He missed the kids. Two of them still lived at home. They smiled when they saw him. They sometimes stayed at the table for a few minutes after they’d finished eating, and they’d chat. They’d talk more to Lizzie than to him, but it was easy enough; it was nice. They’d been wise that way, him and Lizzie. They’d got through the teen years without too much grief. There’d been no drug habits or pregnancies, not too much puking and far less screaming than they’d heard coming from some of the other houses on the road. They were great kids. He missed them. If he thought of it, the fact that he didn’t have children any more – if he’d been an actor, it was what he’d have done to make himself cry.

There was sex as well. That was a nice surprise. There’d always been sex, more or less, in among the nappies and the Calpol and school books. They’d never really stopped fancying each other. But the big surprise was some of the stuff they’d got up to since the kids had stopped being kids. Without any announcement or decision. She bit one of his nipples one night, and she’d never done that before. It hurt but, fuck, it woke him up. And he’d made her come – this was a different night – just by talking to her. So she’d said, anyway. She was hanging onto him and crying before he really knew what was going on. He just thought it was a bit of gas, whispering into her ear. He even put on an American accent, all that pussy and cock palaver. He was still just getting the hang of it, deciding what part of the States he was from, when she came. He’d never fuckin’ forget it.

And there were other women. Women liked mature men. He’d read that somewhere, in a waiting room somewhere – the dentist or the doctor. Or it was just one of the things you grew up with. Women went for older men. He’d never believed it. Even when he changed it a bit, to some women, and some older men. He’d always thought it was a load of bollix. He still thought that, even more since he’d started noticing women looking at him, kind of giving him the eye. Not young ones – he didn’t think he could have coped with that, smiling back at some gorgeous monster less than half his age. No, it was mature women, older women – some older women. One or two of them. There was a woman from up the road who always waved at him – she lived on the other side, nearer the shops – and she looked great from that distance. He’d looked up from the pile of newspapers in the Spar one Sunday morning, and she’d been right beside him. He smelt her perfume, and she looked nice up close too. She was dressed up a bit, in the old-fashioned Sunday way. And she blushed when she saw him –

—Hi.

—Hi.

She looked a bit flustered.

—Great day.

—Lovely.

He loved that, thinking that, that he’d knocked her off-course a bit, just by being there, older man himself, in the Spar on a Sunday morning. He felt the heat in his own face. He bought his Indo and kind of drifted out of the shop, took his time. He hoped, half hoped, they’d walk back up the road together, and chat till they got to her place, and a little bit more at the gate, then he’d go on to his. But it didn’t happen. He walked home alone, and she passed him in her car and she kept going, past her house. She must have been going somewhere, her ma’s or somewhere. Her husband was driving.

It was fine. He wasn’t interested in taking it further, and he didn’t think he’d have had the guts. Anyway, another of his friends, Davie, had separated from his missis a few years back and he was living back home with his mother, the poor fucker, because he couldn’t afford to do anything else. But he, Davie, went to a different pub on Sunday nights, where men and women like himself, unattached and out of practice, went. And, after a few months of this, he’d come up with Davie’s Law: All women over the age of forty are mad. He’d announced it in the local, one of their Wednesday nights, and none of them had disagreed.

Martin was lucky, though. Lizzie was kind of sexy mad. The insanity suited her. She knew it, and that made it even better. He’d never have done anything to wreck it.

But it wasn’t all great, the getting older business – far from. He’d started grunting whenever he picked something up or bent down to tie his laces, or whatever. He hated it. He’d tell himself to stop. But he’d forget. It became natural. Pick the soap up in the shower – grunt. Start the lawnmower – grunt. He didn’t have to grunt. He was well able to bend over and the rest of it. He asked the lads, and they all did it too.

And there was the cancer. Not his. He’d never had it. His friend who’d died. Noel. That was cancer. Felt a bit short of breath. Went to the doctor. Straight up to Beaumont Hospital. Came out two days later with the news and the dates for his chemotherapy. He told them about it the day after that, in the local, sitting in all the smoke – this was a few months before the smoking ban.

Martin didn’t smoke. He never had. Noel did. But he’d given them up a year or so before the cancer, or at least before he found out about it.

None of them said anything, for a bit. They waited for him to go on, to make it less terrible. Martin watched Davie put out his cigarette, crush it into the ashtray. He pushed away the last of the rising smoke with his hand.

—They say it’s early enough, Noel said.—With the chemo and that. They should be able to stop it.

And they’d watched him slowly die. Not slowly. Only now, it seemed slow, start to end. But at the time, he’d been fine – he’d looked fine. He’d lost the hair with the chemo, but he’d looked good. Into the second year, they’d all thought he was going to make it. But then it had really started. They’d had to visit his house. He sat there with his oxygen beside him, one of those canister things. His eyes started to look huge and he struggled to get up when he was going to the door to say goodbye to them.

—Stay where you are; we’re grand.

—No, no, I’ll come out with yis.

It took him forever to get to the door. They waved at the gate, and smiled back in at him and his mad skeleton smile, his shirt way too big on him.

They got into the car. And then they spoke.

—He’s not going to make it, is he?

—No.

Then nothing for a while.

—We’d better get going. He’ll be wondering why we’re not moving.

—Right; okay.

Lizzie knew Noel wasn’t well and she asked Martin how he was, every couple of days. She asked this time and he told her and he cried and she held his head. About a week after that, he went to the jacks and there was blood on the sides of the bowl when he stood up and turned to flush it. He’d pulled the handle before he properly knew: that was his blood. He said nothing. There was no blood the next time, or the time after that. But it was back the next time; it looked strange on the toilet paper, too red. He had to phone in sick and stay home, because he was getting cramps and sweating like a madman. He told Lizzie. He went back to bed. She sat beside him.

—Blood?

—Yeah, he said.

—Jesus. Sore?

—Kind of, he said.—Uncomfortable.

—I’ll phone the doctor’s, she said.

She looked at her watch.

—He should be still there.

—No, he said.

—Yes.

—Okay, he said.

He had to get up again. He had to go back to the jacks.

—You poor thing, she said.

He went past her.

—Sorry, he said.

He heard her at the toilet door, waiting. He wished she’d go away.

It wasn’t cancer. He’d ended up going to a specialist and he had a colonoscopy three weeks later, a fibreoptic camera all the way to his appendix. He lay down on the bed-thing, turned on his left side, like he was told, and the specialist gave him the jab, a needle in the arm. It was over when he woke up and he was in a different room. They gave him toast and tea and the specialist was suddenly there, beside him – Martin was still a bit dopey – and told him that he had diverticular disease. The specialist wrote it down on a piece of paper, said something about looking it up on the Net, and then he went back behind the screen and Martin didn’t see him again.

He googled it when he got home, and for a few stupid minutes, he wished he had cancer. It was fuckin’ disgusting. Diverticula are pockets that develop in the colon wall. He could feel his own colon; he could feel it throbbing, coiling. He got up, and sat down again. Pain, chills, fever, change in bowel habits. His finger was on the screen, under each word. Perforation, abscess or fistula formation. He found a dictionary in his daughter’s room and looked up abscess. He’d never been sure what an abscess actually was, some kind of spectacular toothache. A swollen area within body tissue, containing an accumulation of pus. He put the dictionary back on her desk. He sat on her bed and ate the Mars bar he’d found beside the dictionary. He didn’t look up fistula. It could wait. He knew enough.

He couldn’t tell anyone. He couldn’t tell Lizzie. She’d never let him touch her again. Or she would and he’d see it, the pity and revulsion.

Pus.

Stand well back, lads, the next time I fart. He could make a joke of it. He was good at that. It was part of the way they were, making a laugh out of everything. But they’d still all be disgusted.

Why him – why Martin? What had he done to deserve perforations and pus? Cancer was dignified, something nearly to be proud of – a fuckin’ achievement, compared to this. What the fuck was a fistula formation? He still didn’t look it up.

Noel was in the hospice. He was too weak for home. They went in to see him one Sunday afternoon, one of the last summer days. It was a nice room. The window was open. Martin could smell flowers, hear birds. Noel sat on the side of his bed. His head was bent and everything he said came through the oxygen mask. He sounded high-pitched, like his voice had never broken, like every bit of each word was being pulled out of him. They chatted about the usual, the football and that. They laughed more than they had to, and then the laughter became more even and Martin thought he’d tell them about the diverticular thing. But Noel got in there first.

—Look it, he said.

They said nothing. They waited.

—I’m fighting this, he said.

They waited.

—Yis know that, he said.—But, in case.

They watched him swallow air and keep it.

—Yis’ve been. Great friends, he said.—I just wanted. To say that. In case. You know.

—Works both ways, brother, said Davie.

—You’ll be grand, Noel.

—Just, wanted. To say it.

He died four days after.

The trick was the diet. As far as he could see, from what he’d read on Google. It wasn’t really a disease. It was more like, waiting to be a disease. Most people who had it didn’t even know. Plenty of fresh stuff, vegetables and that. No nuts or big seeds, nothing that might block one of the pockets on his colon.

For fuck sake.

My arse is a time bomb, lads. He could hear himself saying it. Making small of it. Maybe when they were having a pint after the funeral. He could see it and hear it. The questions, the laughter.

He told Lizzie.

He actually blamed Lizzie, but only for a little while. It was the food she’d been giving him for the last twenty-nine years. She’d been killing him. But he didn’t really think that. He told her the same day Noel died. He should have waited – he thought that later. He shouldn’t have jumped in with his own bad news. He knew he was doing it. Throwing himself into poor Noel’s grave. But he did it.

—I’ve a thing called diverticular disease.

He stopped himself from adding myself. I’ve a thing called diverticular disease myself. He didn’t go that far – I’ve got cancer too. He didn’t. But it sat there. He knew it. On the kitchen table.

Disease.

He told her what it was, as far as he understood it.

—I can swing between constipation and diarrhoea. Or, if one of the yokes gets blocked.

He was stuck now. He had to go on. She was looking straight at him.

—If the faecal matter gets caught in one of them, he said.—One of the pockets or pouches, like. It’ll become inflamed. Even perforated.

Her hand went to her mouth.

—If I’m not careful, he told her,—they’ll have to take out my colon.

—All of it?

—Most of it.

He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t really read that far.

—But that’s only if I’m not careful.

—What d’you mean, careful? she said.

—About my diet and that, he said.

—What’s wrong with it?

—Nothing.

He was leaning over, taking the big words back off the table. Why hadn’t he kept his fuckin’ mouth shut?

—Will you have to become a vegetarian or something? she said.

—No, he said.—I don’t think so. But I’ll have to eat vegetables.

—You do already.

—I know.

Just don’t boil them to fuck.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t even think it, really.

He shrugged.

—It’s just ... Anyway. Now you know.

They sat at the table. He thought about Noel.

They walked up to the church together, him and Lizzie; it was no distance from the house. There was a big crowd, waiting on the steps and on the bits of grass, out onto the street.

—That’s good, he said to Lizzie.

He wasn’t sure why. A bit of a comfort for Noel’s wife and kids who’d be arriving soon in the black cars, with the hearse. It was what he’d have thought. My husband was popular. All these people knew my father. Familiar faces. Unfamiliar faces. He’d had a big, full life.

Martin had bought a new shirt, to go with his jacket. It was a bit tight on him, but grand as long as he kept the jacket on. He’d be losing weight soon. The whole new regime. Fruit, grains. The fresh veg. Legumes. Another of the words he’d had to find in the dictionary. Peas, beans. Health and boredom.

He hadn’t slept. Not since Noel had died. Since a good bit before, actually. He’d jump awake before he was really asleep. Afraid to sleep. Afraid of falling. His skin was dry. He saw that when he brought his face up to the mirror. Dry skin all over his face. Especially across his forehead and at the sides of his nose. And spots. He could feel them, threatening, angry, right over his forehead. He looked desperate.

—Stress, said Lizzie.

He nodded.

—Grief.

—He’s only dead a few days, he said.

—You’ve known for two years, she said back.

She was right. It made sense. The death, the news, hadn’t done anything. He’d known what it was when the phone rang. He’d been waiting.

The sleep was the worst part. One good night would have made the difference, would have put whatever was missing back under his skin. That was how he felt, what he nearly believed. The night before, Lizzie had handed him a bottle of Benylin, the cough mixture, half empty and sticky. He hadn’t seen Benylin since the kids had grown up.

—Take a mouthful of that.

He looked at it.

—What’s the best-before date? he said.—It must be fuckin’ ancient.

—Never mind the date, she said.—If it pours out it’s grand.

He got the lid off. He filled his mouth. He’d always liked the taste of it. He swallowed.

—Here, she said.

He gave her the bottle. She put it to her mouth and swallowed the rest.

—Goodnight, she said.

—Goodnight.

He conked out but he was awake again at half-three. Wide awake. Looking at the ceiling becoming brighter, the big swinging cobweb he always meant to get at with the brush. He got up. Had his breakfast. His new breakfast – a sliced banana, a sliced pear. Yum fucking’ yum. It was alright though, and good for him. He was hungry again by the time the rest of them got up.

They stood at the church gate and chatted a bit as they waited for the hearse. It was weird, like pretending they weren’t there for the funeral.

—Here they come.

The hearse came off the road, and up, past them, to the front of the church. They blessed themselves. The coffin in there – Noel. It didn’t seem real. And the black cars, after the hearse. Two of them. The wife, the kids, a boyfriend; his sisters, the brother from Australia. They watched as they all got out of the cars and the undertaker’s men took the coffin from the back of the hearse and carried it into the church.

He and Lizzie went about halfway up the aisle, not too near, not too far back. Martin hadn’t been in the church in years. But he remembered it exactly, how cold it always was. How far down his knees would have to go before they landed on the padding that ran under the back of the seat in front of him, when the priest told them to kneel. How Jesus in the Stations of the Cross looked a bit like Keith Richards. He was going to show Lizzie, to remind her.

But he heard the gasp. That was what it sounded like, the whole place gasping, softly, everybody there. He looked. Noel’s wife was walking away from the coffin. She’d put a framed photograph on top of it.

Noel. That was what the gasp was for. Noel, twenty-five years before.

—Jesus. Look at that.

He’d forgotten. He’d forgotten that Noel used to look like that. A big man with a big grin and a big collar on his red shirt. A big handsome man. A young man, looking back at the camera. Right into his future.

He’d forgotten. The last two years, they’d watched Noel get smaller. And, in the last months, the smaller version became the man. The man Martin hoped he wasn’t talking to for the last time. He’d looked at him carefully, already remembering, storing him away. And he’d forgotten about the real man. The full man. But there he was now, on the coffin.

It should have been heartbreaking. And it was. Seeing the faded colour, the big collar. He felt guilty. He’d let himself forget. He’d let the sick man become the man. He’d forgotten why Noel had been Noel, why they’d been friends. But there was more – the guilt didn’t settle. He could feel it, and hear. The gasp had become whispers. The photograph. Noel’s wife – Barbara – her putting the picture there, on the coffin, that was brilliant. And brave – going up there, letting the wood of the frame clatter against the coffin lid. Keeping her hands steady. She was even smiling when she came back and sat down.

Martin could see Davie in front of him, and the other men he knew and liked, all looking at each other, over other people’s heads, smiling. Sad and good had become the same thing. Martin wanted to talk. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to stop being the man with diverticular disease. He felt Lizzie beside him. He nudged her knee with his. She nudged back.

The priest was walking over to the platform beside the altar, and the microphone. Martin heard a soft voice somewhere behind him, a man.

—Here goes.

They stood.